


Blank

by GuineapigQueen



Series: 200 Followers Requests [10]
Category: South Park
Genre: Dark Thoughts, Depression, Emotional Eating, M/M, Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-19
Updated: 2019-07-19
Packaged: 2020-07-07 17:43:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19856338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GuineapigQueen/pseuds/GuineapigQueen
Summary: Craig rolls over and groans as he looks at the clock. 3am, but he is still painfully awake. He’s tired, deathly so, but sleep eludes him in the way most emotions do lately. Everything is just blank, slow, long. Life drags on, specifically him.or a fill for this prompt: "Prompt?? Uhh Craig has a crush on Tweek but lately he's been feeling depressed family issues he blowes up bc chubby Craig is some good shit. He doesn't want to see anyone Tweek comes by and saves him and asks him on a date."





	Blank

**Author's Note:**

> My last piece for my 200 followers requests! Thyanks to everyone who sent one in and thanks for being patient as I filled them :)
> 
> Thanks to sun_sparks for the beta job :)

Craig rolls over and groans as he looks at the clock. 3am, but he is still painfully awake. He’s tired, deathly so, but sleep eludes him in the way most emotions do lately. Everything is just blank, slow, long. Life drags on, specifically him. He’s dragged through his existence unwillingly every day. He doesn’t wanna die, he just doesn’t see the point. What’s the point in getting up and going to school when it’s just going to be as empty and miserable as the last day. Instead he stares into the dark, wishing he could go back to when he felt something,  _ anything. _

He hasn’t always been like this. As a child he was normal, he played with his friends, went to birthday parties and just did normal kid things. He wasn’t the most emotional person but he had feelings at least. Being with people he liked made him happy, his friends made him laugh for real. He’s not sure exactly when that stopped but it did. Maybe this is what they mean by growing up. Everything becomes meaningless. 

Craig is only fifteen but he feels old and tired, ready to give up and curl up in his bed forever. He hasn’t been going to school lately, staying home to sleep all day and hide from the world. He’s waiting for his parents to notice. 

They haven’t. Nobody has. 

—

Craig doesn't get out of bed until after 2pm. He thinks it’s a Saturday, but he can’t say for sure. He only goes downstairs to raid his stash for some junk food. He knows he should probably eat some real food but he can't bring himself to. He trudges down the stairs in his unwashed pyjamas. He can't remember the last time he washed his hair or showered. It doesn’t matter anyway, he just looks as shit as he feels. 

“Oh, hello there," says a voice. It’s his mom, she’s in the kitchen washing dishes. Craig was kind of hoping there’d be nobody there so that he could just grab some food and head back up to his room. He almost turns around to head back up to his room, but the rumbling of his belly stops him. He’s really fucking hungry, he hasn’t eaten at all today. 

“Hi," he says flatly, hoping his tone conveys that he doesn’t want to engage in conversation with her. He thinks she gets the hint, but she chooses not to take it. 

“You got any plans for this weekend?" She asks him. She’s trying to sound light and casual, Craig can’t help but roll his eyes.

“No," he replies, heading towards the pantry. 

“Craig," she says, tone more serious this time. “You can’t sleep all day, stop showering and just refuse to interact with the world. That’s not how life works.”

“What does it matter what I do?” Craig snaps, frustrated that he’s having this conversation in the first place. He’s fucking hungry. 

“It matters because you’re my kid, and I’m worried about you," she says calmly, clearly not responding to Craig’s aggression. 

“No, you aren’t. You’re just disappointed I’m not smart and socially capable like Tricia," Craig spits angrily.

“That’s not it at all, and you know it. It’s not healthy to sleep all day and never go out with your friends," she continues. Craig’s so done with this lecture, she needs to leave him alone and let him wallow in peace. 

“I don’t want to go out," Craig glares at her, before grabbing a couple of bags of chips and a big soda from the pantry. Technically he bought this food for himself, so his mom can’t really stop him. 

“Craig," she groans in frustration. “You can’t eat those, it’ll be dinner in a few hours.”

Craig shrugs and head back towards the stairs.

“Craig," she says, he knows better than to ignore her. “You need to start eating better.”

“I’m fine," he replies, crossing his arms and frowning. Well, crossing his arms as best he can while carrying all the food. 

“Baby," she says quietly, “you’ve put on a lot of weight…”

It’s an awkward, awful moment. She knows she’s said the wrong thing, and Craig knows that technically she’s right. The sweatpants he’s wearing don’t really fit anymore but it’s not anything he wanted to face.

“Fuck you!” He yells, turning away from her.

“No, it’s okay! I just… I want you to be healthy and happy," she calls after him, scrambling to say the right thing and salvage the situation. Craig’s not having it. 

“I’m fine, leave me alone!” He yells back before angrily climbing the stairs and devouring all the food, crying as he does so. 

—

Craig doesn’t mean to binge the way he does. He often buys the food with the intention to savour it and eat it slowly but it never seems to go that way. Maybe something happened at school, or he had another argument with his mom or maybe he just felt shit in general. It doesn’t take much to set him off and when he’s upset he just can’t stop himself. 

When he’s curled up in bed, stomach aching, he’s at least grateful that his mom doesn’t push him to come down for dinner. He just doesn’t have control over his life anymore. 

He’d like to get along with his mom; he wants to have a serious conversation with her without it ending in him clamming up and yelling at her, but whenever he’s in the moment he can’t stop. Things aren’t any better with his dad or his sister either. Neither he, nor his father are any good at handling emotional situations. So they both either ignore the situation or yell and it never works out well for them. Tricia usually just loses patience with him and calls him a fat shit, which in turn makes him yell at her. Craig doesn’t know how to change, but he wishes he could. 

At school, things aren’t much better. He isn’t actually arguing with his friends, he’s just grown distant. He doesn’t feel much of a connection anymore. He feels so alone and isolated to the point that he doesn’t feel like he could bring it up with anyone else. 

He’s chronically empty, void of feeling, ambition, desire, joy. And sometimes, all he has is the food to make him feel full. 

—

Craig stays home from school on Monday. He gets up, pretends to get ready and then goes back to bed as soon as his parents have left for work. So far, Tricia hasn’t said anything or ratted him out and for that he is silently appreciative. In the back of his mind he waits for an argument to escalate to the point that she rats him out to their parents. 

It’s easy to just stay home, draw the curtains and wallow in the dark. Huddled in blankets and sleeping hours away, it’s almost like time doesn’t even pass. It could been noon, it could be 6pm, it could be later - he doesn’t know. 

He appreciates the quiet and the stillness, even if his brain is an endless hell of nothing. All encompassing and never ending, everything and nothing crushing him slowly. 

The only thing that breaks this cycle is a knock at his door. He doesn’t go to answer it just yells a vague  _ “what!?”  _ Hoping the person on the other side will go away. They don’t. 

“Get up, Craig!” Tricia calls. “Someone’s here to see you!” 

Craig sits up and rubs his bleary eyes, genuinely confused. He doesn’t know anyone who would come visit him, his friends have mostly been distant and given him his space. Tricia lets herself in and turns on the light. Craig can’t help but yelp as he shields his eyes. 

“I’m sick of waiting for you to wake up. Tweek’s here to see you," she says, arms crossed and a frustrated frown across her features. “You should socialise for once.”

Tweek emerges in the doorway from behind Tricia. He smiles nervously and gives Craig a little wave. 

“Hi Craig," he says quietly. “I’ve missed you at school, man.”

“Hi," Craig says dumbly and Tricia rolls her eyes.

“Ugh, bye," is all she says as she flounces out of the room. Tweek himself edges slowly into the room, gingerly closing Craig’s bedroom door behind him. 

“Is everything okay?” Tweek asks him “you haven’t been at school for  _ -hnn-  _ ages and like, when you are there you’re all quiet and distant.”

“I’m…” Craig trails off unsure. One one hand he wants to say he’s fine, build up walls and keep carrying on even though he’s miserable. But on the other hand he’s not sure how much more of this he can take. And Tweek, well Tweek has always been special. He’s always been so empathetic and kind to Craig when all Craig has really done is be distant and ghost him. 

“I’m going through something," he says finally. Admitting it kind of feels good, even if he hasn’t gone into detail. 

“Can I help?” Tweek asks comfortingly. “Do you wanna  _ -ah-  _ talk about it?”

“I’m not sure what to say," Craig says honestly. “I’m just a bit down I guess.”

Tweek gives an understanding nod. “I’ll be here for you, if you wanna talk more about it or  _ -gah-  _ whatever.”

“Can we just play video games or something?” Craig asks, he hasn’t been able to have fun in ages but something about Tweek being here makes him want to try.

“Sure," Tweek says with a big smile. “What games have you got?”

—

Having Tweek round was nice, but the buzz doesn’t last. It’s gone almost as soon as Tweek leaves and Craig is left alone with his thoughts again. It doesn’t take them long to close in. 

He hates this, he hates that he can barely have fun with Tweek. Someone he genuinely likes and does want to spend time with. It shouldn’t be this way - he should be able to enjoy  _ something  _ right? He used to be able to have fun despite how meaningless everything felt. The worst part is, he wants to enjoy these things. He’s not trying to be so boring and sad on purpose. If he woke up tomorrow feeling better he’d love it; he’d love to enjoy things with his friends again. Having a split second of a good time with Tweek only reminds him of just how much he’s missed. He wishes he could change things but he doesn’t know how. 

He has another fight with his mom. This time because he refuses to go on a trip for the weekend with the family. He feels like an asshole saying no but he knows he can’t do it. He can’t be trapped in a car for hours with just his family and their prying questions. He most definitely can’t handle being in a different place, in a different bed and sharing a room with his sister. He can’t do all that social interaction that will be required of him. 

The fight is nasty, or at least it feels nasty. His mother doesn’t really say anything mean; he can just hear that she’s deeply disappointed and at the end of her tether. He doesn’t want to be awful to her but she’s backed him into a corner and he’s afraid. So he lashes out, escalating how awful he is until she gets so sick of him that she lets him stay home. 

It doesn’t feel like a victory. He just feels like a horrible person.

So all he does for the rest of the day is sob in a gross heap in his bed. More than anything he just wants it to stop. The emptiness, the guilt, the fear. He wants the ride to stop and he wants to fade out of existence. He’s so damn tired of being him. 

The only thing that pulls him out of this vicious cycle of thoughts is his phone vibrating. He checks it through watery eyes. It’s Tweek.

_ I’m at your door, let me in  _

Craig considers ignoring him, keeping up the theme of being an asshole and just leaving Tweek out there until he goes away. But Craig can’t do that, especially not to Tweek. Tweek is the most wonderful person Craig knows and Craig could never turn him away. So he goes downstairs to let Tweek in even though he knows he looks like he’s been crying and he’s still in his pyjamas.

“Craig," is all Tweek says when Craig wordlessly answers the door, blankets wrapped around him and tears still in his eyes. Tweek looks on with concern. “You’re really not okay, are you?”

Craig shakes his head but lets Tweek inside all the same. He collapses on the living room couch, trying to hold back more emotion and tears. 

“Whatever it is, I’m  _ -gah-  _ sorry dude," Tweek says, sinking down beside him. He puts an arm around Craig’s shoulders and shit, Craig hasn’t realised just how long he’s gone without being touched. It’s nice, in a weird, fucked up way.

“It’s just…” he sniffs, unsure what to say. “I don’t like me Tweek.”

“You don’t like you?” Tweek echoes. “Why?”

“I’m just, I’m mean, Tweek. I get sad and angry and I take it out on the people trying to help me. I can’t get out of bed anymore and I just, I hate how empty my soul feels. I don’t like being alive anymore… I don’t like being me…”

“Whoa, okay calm down. I don’t think you’re  _ -hnn-  _ mean, you’re just going through some things. It’ll  _ -nghh-  _ get better man," Tweek insists, pulling Craig closer to him for a tighter hug. 

“It won’t. I don’t want to do this anymore," Craig replies miserably.

“Well, I like having you around," Tweek says. “I’m selfish, but if you can’t do it for  _ -nnn-  _ yourself then maybe do it for me?” 

“Do what?” Craig blinks back, confused. 

“Maybe see a doctor? I don’t think you’re  _ -ah-  _ mean, Craig, I think you’re sick. Being empty all the time, or sad? That’s not normal and you shouldn’t have to live that way," Tweek says with conviction. “Depression isn’t a joke man, I gotta take pills for my anxiety. But they  _ -gah-  _ help a lot. Maybe there’s something that can help you too?” 

“I… I wanna feel better so bad. I think I’d try anything," Craig admits. He’s terrified, but he’s even more terrified of what he might do if he does nothing about these thoughts and feelings.

“This is your rock bottom, Craig. Things will only get better from here on out," Tweek promises. 

—

Tweek stays the night and Craig is grateful for it. He shouldn’t be alone in that state and he feels a little bit stupid for refusing to go with his family. He doesn’t protest when they finally crawl into bed, past midnight and Tweek holds him. Craig trusts Tweek and he knows it’s not a creepy thing, Craig just needs to be held and Tweek knows it. Craig feels much safer in his arms, knowing that at the very least someone cares for him despite it all. 

He feels a little better in the light of day. At least, he feels less desperate, like a bit more rationality had come back. He wants to see a doctor now and he feels like he might be able to take back control of the situation. Maybe. He wants to try at least. 

Tweek orders them food from an app on his phone, apparently his parents are okay with him just doing that. 

“They’re never home to cook so they leave me the  _ -nnn-  _ credit card," Tweek says.

Tweek is even kind enough to go get the pizza on his own, not forcing Craig into any unnecessary social interaction with a stranger. It’s more helpful than Tweek knows. Craig feels calmer than he has in a long while as he and Tweek cuddle on his bed, lazily eating pizza. 

“I was coming over to tell you I  _ -ah-  _ like you," Tweek says shyly. “Last night, I mean.”

“You like me?” Craig repeats, shocked that anyone could like him, let alone Tweek. The closest Craig has to real happy feeling is the faint warmth that spreads through his chest when he thinks about Tweek. Maybe if he wasn’t so sad it might be stronger. 

“Yeah, I like you a ton," Tweek affirms. “I was trying to think of the  _ -nghh-  _ perfect way to ask you out but you stopped turning up at school.”

“Yeah, well now you’ve seen the real me. Run away," Craig says, he’s only half-joking. Tweek probably should run far, far away. Tweek shakes his head. 

“No, no way! I wanna stay and be there for you. I don’t really wanna  _ -hnn-  _ ask you out when you’re in this state but like, maybe, when you’re feeling stronger we could  _ -nghh-  _ go out?” He rambles, Craig can hear the nerves in his voice but he can also see Tweek fidgeting with some loose fibres on his T-shirt. 

“You’re way too good for me. You don’t want all this mess," Craig replies sadly. He’d like to be with someone as kind and loving as Tweek is but he knows he’s just too much. He’s pretty unlovable and he doesn’t want to drive Tweek away or hurt him. 

“I definitely do. Last night didn’t turn me away or anything. It made me want to  _ -ah-  _ support you more," Tweek says sincerely. Craig doesn’t know why Tweek would want to stay and be around such a negative person like himself but he’s definitely impressed by the loyalty.

“Tweek, I’m… I’m an ugly, fat and sad mess. I’m not fun," he says, trying to deter Tweek to no avail. 

“You are fun. I like you for who you are," he affirms. “You going through a depressive patch isn’t who you are - it’s  _ -hnn-  _ something that’s happening to you. I’ll still like you when it’s over.”

“I just don’t wanna make you miserable like me," Craig admits. The last thing he wants is to infect Tweek with poison and damage the nice connection they have. 

“You won’t, mental illness isn’t contagious. But we can  _ -gah-  _ take it slow man, just be us and when you’re feeling up to it we could try one date? If it’s shit we won’t do it again, but it can’t  _ -nnn-  _ hurt to try right?” Tweek asks, taking Craig’s hands in his and never breaking eye contact. 

“Well, I guess we could try, but later. I don’t feel like I can date right now," Craig says thoughtfully. He would like to date Tweek but he’d like to do it when his head is in a better place, when he can really enjoy Tweek’s company and his feelings aren’t dulled. 

“Definitely not now, now I’ll just be your friend and your support," Tweek agrees. 

“Yeah, okay. We can do that for now," Craig says, smiling. He leans into Tweek’s touch and lets his warmth envelope him. For the first time in a while, he feels hope. 

—

Craig knows he has to do it; he doesn’t want to, but if he wants any kind of hope that things might better he has to do it: He’s gotta talk to his mom. He waits until she comes up to check on him, not wanting to have such a private conversation anywhere else but his bedroom. This time he steels himself to let her in and not to yell “go away”, like he normally would. 

She knocks softly. It conveys her worry before she’s even said any words. 

“Craig, can I come in?” She asks, like she does almost every day. Today he’s gonna say yes. 

“Yes," he replies, his voice a little wobbly with nerves. He can tell that wasn’t the answer she was expecting as there’s a weird awkward silence between them before he hears the door creak open. 

“Are you feeling okay, baby?” she asks, voice barely above a whisper. Probably worried if she speaks too loud or says the wrong thing that Craig will change his mind. 

“No…” He watches her stand awkwardly between his bed and the doorway. “You can come here," he adds, patting the spot beside him.

“Okay," she replies and almost seems to tiptoe over. Craig hates that he’s made her feel that unwelcome in his presence. “Do you wanna… uh, talk about it?”

“Yeah," Craig sighs, trying to think of something to say that isn’t monosyllabic. “I don’t feel like me I guess," he says with a shrug, looking down at his hands. “And I don’t know how to get that back?”

“Like how?” She asks. “Just tell me what you’re feeling.”

“Like shit. Like everything is pointless, and I’m just here. And then I get sad about it and like, be mean… to you and Tricia… to my friends. I feel like shit about it," he admits shakily. 

“It’s okay, Craig," she says, putting an arm around him and pulling him close. “I know you don’t mean it. We all know you’re going through something and we all want to help you.”

“I’m still sorry for yelling at you, it’s like I don’t know what I’m doing until the damage is done," he replies sadly. He’s never felt so out of control and to anyone not in his body, it’s impossible to describe. He just feels like a dick. 

“It’s okay, as a mom I’ve been yelled at many times. I can take it," she says with a small smile. “You’d be surprised the things you said to me as a little kid when mad.”

“Well, I’m gonna try to… not do that. And um, I don’t know how to say this in a way that isn’t weird but uh, I’d like some help? Please?” He knows he’s not making sense but he’s not totally sure what he’s asking for. He hides his face in her shoulder self consciously.

“Of course, you just need to tell me what you need. I love you, but I’m not a mind reader," she says, patting his hair. 

“Mental health help I guess? Tweek pointed out to me that I might be depressed… or something? But I don’t know where to start," he bites his lip. He doesn’t know how you’re supposed to do this, how he’s supposed to get better? 

“We could start with a doctor? And see where we need to go from there?” She suggests, her voice warm and kind. Craig doesn’t know what he did to deserve such a patient, loving mother but he knows he’s been taking her for granted. He’s got to stop doing that. 

“Yeah I think that’s probably a good idea," Craig agrees. He moves closer into her warmth, glad she still loves him after all this. And Tweek, Tweek still likes him. Tweek  _ like,  _ likes him. 

“And we can do this together okay? You tell me what’s going on and I can help you," she says, “because I can’t be there for you if you won’t let me in.”

“Yeah I know, I’ll try to be more open from now on," he promises. 

He doesn’t really feel like he deserves all this wonderful support but he decides that at least his loved ones think he’s worth it. So he does as Tweek asked, and does it for them. Maybe later he can do it for himself, too. 

**Author's Note:**

> My tumblr is blesspastacraig if you wanna be friends :)


End file.
